Target - Curse of Fenric

Again, there are deleted scenes from this story which the Target uses, and I don't note all the occasions where the novelisation uses that material.

There's some opening pontification about where a story starts or ends, but this is a comparison, not a review, so I won't comment on it.

Part of Ace's costume is a pair of size 18 bloomers. She doesn't like that any more than we do. I must say I didn't think she was quite that big around the hips.

Sorin's men are guided ashore by a lantern placed by a local woman. The 'Everything in English' line is not used.

The wording of the letter of authorisation the Doctor forges differs from that seen on screen.

At night Ace perceives a dark, ancient power in the Doctor's face. After he leaves, she overhears Kathleen comforting her baby, and this causes her to shed a tear.

While Sorin is stealthily circling the camp fence, he ruminates about the Ultima project is specifically a Naval rival to the work at Bletchley Park. Meanwhile, Petrossian isn't fleeing an unseen foe, but being spoken to and killed by the undead missing commandoes.

Mr Wainwright is described as 'young'. I like Nicholas Parsons in this, but young he is not, even back in 1989. He is however correctly referred to as Mr Wainwright throughout: well done Ian Briggs for not committing the same breach of ecclesiastical etiquette as the authors of Ghost Light and Remembrance of the Daleks, to name but two.

Ace contributes an 'And me,' and a conspiratorial smile, to the exchange about Maidens Point which survives in a deleted scene.

The scene with Millington amid his Nazi regalia has some documentary evidence attached in the form of one of his schoolboy essays.

At the beach, Phyllis tries to ponce a 'ciggie' off Ace, only to be told that she's given up. 'What for?' asks 40s Girl puzzledly.

Ace's discovery of baby Audrey is a tense moment for Kathleen, she's afraid that the Doctor will get her into trouble. 'Women - they even smelled different,' thinks Millington after delivering his ultimatum at the end of this scene

When Judson and Millington are discussing Ace, Millington suspects her of being an Army spy from Bletchley. And the reason he had the Navy's rival project set up at this particular camp was specifically to learn the meaning of the inscriptions at the church. Furthermore, Judson was paralysed as a result of Millington - jealous of his attentions to another boy - attacking him during a rugby match at school, and Judson has been emotionally blackmailing him ever since.

More documents: a translation of a Viking saga reveals that the flask was brought back from the Silk Lands via Transylvania, where a black fog appeared and began to trail the Vikings across Europe.

When Jean and Phyllis lure Trofimov into the sea, he's drawn by the 'deep musk scent of the darkness in girls.'

The camp appears to be near Whitby: one of the documents quoted is a letter from Bram Stoker to his wife regarding the disappearance and exsanguination of a local girl, together with the coy suggestion that it might inspire Stoker with a story... If you like that sort of thing, you'll love this.

We don't see Perkins taking the Wrens' chess set - the 'bonfire of burning chess sets' is already in progress as the Doctor arrives.

Just before Miss Hardaker gets killed, we learn from her reverie that she had an illegitimate child who died young, and has been shunned by the villagers ever since.

The Doctor's reference to the Orient in the crypt gives Ace the chance to use an old Hancock gag. Sadly she isn't being ironic.

The faith that the Doctor uses during the Haemovore attack on the church is faith in his companion - he mentally goes through a list of their names. Ace can hear odd words from the creatures - which the Doctor tells her means that she's slightly telepathic. And she also thinks some interesting thoughts about 'the powerful Russian' and the idea of 'tumbling with him into oblivion.'

Sorin is thinking of other things just then: his family and all the workers by hand and by mind. When he brandishes the red star, its significance as the international symbol of the working class is explained by the narrator.

Another document, this one the recounting the Doctor and Fenric's original chess game, told as an Arabian Nights pastiche, translated by an ancestor of Judson. There's some truly awful humour about the 'Island of Dhógs and the White City' but an interesting bit about the Doctor subsequently leaving with the freed slave Zeleekha, who returns two years later bearing the Fenric flask and telling tales of fabulous travels among the stars.

After Sorin's capture, the Doctor and Millington swap talk about the 'status azure' Hindle-style suicidal defence plan.

The Doctor says 'Evil from the dawn of time', not 'since'. And Ace doesn't say anything about a wind whipping through her clothes: she employs a much better weather metaphor, about the heat causing them to stick to her. Unfortunately though she still does the bit about moving so fast that she doesn't exist.

Judson/Fenric doesn't accuse Crane of humiliating him, but he does reveal that she'd been a Russian spy all along.

Kathleen's escape is much embellished, although Ace doesn't do the bit about the empty house in Perivale. The photo is handed over before they leave the hut, and they don't just climb out of the window, they smash through the floor, and then they both drive through some Haemovores in the jeep before Ace stops, gives Kathleen the address, and watches her drive out of sight.

When the Doctor is listing the 'coincidences' that failed to convince him, Lady Peinforte's chess set is not mentioned.

Sadly, Bates and Vershinin don't revive in this version.

While Ace is taking her carthartic swim at the end, she doesn't have the 'always love you' thoughts - instead she has a vision of hundreds of Aces, each representing one of her emotions. She acknowledges them her own and lets them go, and comes to the surface.

The final exchange with the Doctor is absent. But: there is an epilogue set in Paris, 1887, where the Doctor appears to be visiting 'Dorothée' after some years. (Not that many though, as she's still a 'young lady'). She has her eye on a certain Count Sorin... the author returns to his opening ramblings about the circularity or linearity of stories, and at least he has some justification this time after such a strange envoi.